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Saturday, 12 November 2016

A Lagos Test For Ghanaian Texture Of New Threads

By Tajudeen Sowole

As a group art exhibition of
seven artists from Ghana is currently showing in Lagos, the radiating aura
generates two factors: a bite of Lagos
art market for the visiting artists, and a fresh taste of contemporary Ghanaian
art for art connoisseurs and aficionados in Lagos.

A sculpture, Pretty Wing by Constance Swaniker

With the familiar works of Ghanaian modernist
and crowd-effect master, Ablade Glover; contemporary expression of El Anatsui;
and occasional presence of Owusu Ankomah, among others at art auctions in
Lagos, the city's art scene has not exactly been devoid of art from Ghana. But
these rarely seen artists, now in town on Lagos art landscape, from Ghana set one thinking
on how much of the country’s art they actually represent.

The current entrants into Lagos art scene from
Ghana who are showing a body of work titled New
Threads, at Temple Muse, Victoria Island, till November 17, 2016, include
Kofi Setordji, Kofi Agorsor, Nii Obodai, Nicholas Kowalski, Constance Swaniker,
Nyornuwofia Agorsor and Nana Anoff. From
narrative of post-Kwame Nkrumah and the people's environment, represented in
Nii's photography; to the panoramic view of news across the world and effects
on local challenges, probed through sculptures by Setordji; and Agorsor's bold
abstraction, particularly in Organic
Woman; as well as assemblage of discarded objects from Anoff, New Threads appear to confirm that art,
increasingly, in Africa, is struggling to strike a balance in
appropriation space.

While intellectual contents of every piece of
art, across ages and peoples, cannot be denied, the strength of art from Africa
has been in the richness of aesthetics. But in recent times, the challenge of
socio-political and economic issues across Africa has tilted themes of artists
towards narratives that are more intellectual in contents than aesthetics. The
artists of New Threads, like most
victims of contemporary African art content-challenge, also struggle to strike
that balance, so suggest the works on the walls at Temple Muse. In fact works
such as Entangle, a figural painting
by Kowalski; geometric rendition, Mind of
the Universe by Nyornuwofia, among few others are merely pseudo-aesthetics.

From the New
Threads lots however, stands out something that perfectly fits into the
mentality of Lagos art appreciation: Swaniker's sculpture of a humanoids
titled. Pretty Wings. Depicted in
what looks like a female, the winged figure, in style and technique, reminds
one of sculptural themes of a Lagos-based artist, Peju Alatise. Coincidentally,
Swaniker, among all the exhibiting artists, is having her second show in Lagos;
she was here for a solo few years ago.

KofiAgorsor's Organic Woman.

Sponsored by UBS, the Swiss Global Bank, and
Moet-Hennessey, New Threads affords
an opportunity for expanding African art market within the continent, the
curator, Sandra Mbanefo Obiago states. “We need to stretch
out a hand of creative friendship across our porous borders and create more
opportunities for showcasing cutting edge contemporary African expressions in
each others’ countries”

And as artists of New Threads add to the growing diversity, perhaps, dynamics of
Lagos art landscape - particularly showing during the peak of the city's art
season - the conservative or traditional art appreciation taste in Africa's
fastest growing art hub city, which largely, has been built on aesthetics, is
being challenged. However, It should be of interest to the visiting artists
that Lagos, in the past ten years, has been breeding growing energy of
contemporary contents that are shifting the paradigm.. But in a country like
Nigeria where an artist's worth is measured by popular signature in the art
market, sacrificing aesthetics value on the altar of intellectual appropriation
is like swimming against strong current.